13 French Street Read Online Free

Wouldn’t hear of it. You’re on vacation. Petra will take you around, show you the country. I’ve got a million things to do, Alex. Hell, it’s a mess. I wanted to sit and talk. But either I go tomorrow morning, and try straightening things up, or I’m flattened.” He paused, gestured with his glass as I didn’t look at Petra. He said, “How’s the new museum coming along?”
    “It’s all right. Coming along.”
    “That’s the trouble with you, Alex. You’ll never get ahead. You’ll go on from year to year, wasting your time. You won’t get ahead because you’re too damned honest.” He drank. “Enough to make a man sick. Don’t get me wrong, now. Just that in business today, you got to grab, you got to lie, you got to be there one jump ahead of the next guy. If you aren’t—” He snapped his fingers. “Like that. You want to get ahead, don’t you?”
    “Well—”
    “Yeah, ‘well.’ What good is
well?
What good is a museum? What good is digging up bones all over the damned world? And now you’ve quit that to build a fool museum, and the man putting up the money must be a fool, too. Ye gods, Alex! Get into something hot!”
    “Like you? You’re into something hot, from what you say.”
    “You’re right. But listen, it
is
hot. No, damn it—it isn’t. Not now. Damn it!” He drank.
    Something bumped on the floor. We all looked. The old woman had dropped her glass. It rolled across the rug and onto the hardwood floor,
clink, clink, clink, clink…
.
    “You’re a sweet boy,” the old woman said. She was leaning awry in her chair and as drunk as a lord.
    “I told you!” Verne snapped.
    Petra didn’t look at him. She smiled at me.
    “Is she all right?” I asked.
    “You’re a sweet boy.”
    I’d thought she was speaking to her son, Verne. But she was looking at me. There was a silly grin on her lips, and she nodded toward the right side of her chair, catching herself each time at the very instant of collapse.
    “It hits her more quickly than it used to,” Petra said.
    “He’s a good man,” the old woman said. She pointed a quivering finger at me. “Yes, you, sonny. Take care of yourself.” She went off into laughter. The dry leaves again, rustling against the side of a basement window, maybe with mice playing in the leaves.
    “It’s a vile thing!” Verne said. He faced Petra. His voice turned from ruggedness to pleading. “Good Lord, don’t you know she’s an old woman? Don’t you know the very smell of alcohol sends her balmy? You do know. You do it deliberately.”
    “Oh, snap out of it,” Petra said. “Stop and think. What’s she got? Nothing. It won’t hurt her. So she’s drunk. So are you drunk.”
    “Yes, but I—”
    “It’s no different.”
    “You know damned well it’s different.”
    The old woman said, “They’re talking about me.” Only she didn’t say it that clearly. It was thick, sickly, bad. “But don’t you worry,” she went on. “I know what I know.”
    Petra looked at her.
    Verne said, “Take her upstairs, will you?”
    Petra rose, placed her glass on the coffee table. “Will you excuse me?” she said, looking at me. She went over to the old lady. “C’mon, Maw,” she said, “let’s go.”
    The old woman couldn’t stand. Her eyes were mere glinting slits, her mouth a tight clamp of chin to nose, and she kept saying over and over, “I know what I know.”
    As Petra half carried, half walked the old woman past me, she halted. “Tell Mr. Bland good night.”
    “Oh, God!” Verne said. Petra was shouting as loud as she could; shouting into the old woman’s ear.
    “Tell Mr. Bland good night.”
    “Good night, Mr. Man,” Verne’s mother said. “I know what I know, but you’re a good boy.” They reeled off into the hallway. I listened to them going up the stairs. The old woman was muttering.
    “I’m sorry about this,” Verne said. “Damn it. Seems like everything’s going wrong. Naturally Petra doesn’t like Mother.